43-410
For many years, the assumption was that apart from a possible Roman fortlet scheduled as a monument seen from an aerial photograph, there was little to indicate any Roman settlement in Hadleigh. This view changed in 2015 when a test pit dug into the front lawn of the United Reformed Church showed up 5 small fragments of Roman pottery above and below a compacted pebbled surface.
Could the surface be part of a Roman road or trackway or the first observed signs of a Romano-British farmstead in Roman Hadleigh?
[Photo to left of all pottery found at that level, by courtesy of Access Cambridge Archaeology]
in 2015, a total of 12 test pits were excavated in Hadleigh under the direction of Dr Carenza Lewis as part of the Higher Education Field Academy run by Access Cambridge Archaeology. A single sherd of Roman pottery was also found at that time in Castle Lane.
[See http://www.access.arch.cam.ac.uk/reports/essex/hadleigh for a link to the full 2015 pottery report]